The Marker

Radishes germinate and mature so quickly that we often use them as a marker for other slower germinating crops.

Crops like...

Subterranean

The vegetables that are left to harvest in the deep fall (or pre-winter days of November) are all subterranean.

Subterranean means existing underground.

Have you ever thought about how hostile the environment must be where the carrots thrive.

Let's think about that for a minute.

Drying Fall Produce

You often think of drying early and mid-summer vegetables and fruits such as tomatoes and beans.

The dehydrator is a work horse that can continue into the fall.

Here are some things we dry in the fall...

Sunset

We have had some really great sunsets this summer. Our dining room faces the setting sun.

When we have these neat cloud formations at dusk you get some amazing sunsets. Some people buy a cabin up north in Minnesota and spend hours driving to get there every weekend.

Spinach Cakes with Parmesan

These delightful little cakes are like baby quiches. An elegant way to increase the super food spinach in your diet.

A Trick For Growing Very Early Carrots

The first thing to come up in the spring at our farm is the garlic. Wait...I thought this post is about carrots.

Yes there is a connection, read on...

Thinking Differently - As easy as 1, 2, 3

Farmers can often circumvent the conventional wisdom and improve their bottom line by just thinking differently.

Let's look at some examples...

What Do You Suggest for My Broken Heart

One of our favorite customers stopped by this week and asked "What do you suggest for my broken heart?"

We get some weird requests from time to time and this one was a little strange. I wasn't sure if she was asking for relationship help. I could have referred her to a counselor or pastor.

The riddle was soon solved...

The Science & Creativity Behind Great Coleslaw

We had a great cabbage crop this fall and so I have been experimenting with any coleslaw variations and recipes. This has been a very tasty and healthy fall. We are now heading into the heart of winter and we still have about 120 heads of cabbage left.

So how does this delightful salad called coleslaw work?

Coleslaw - With Amazing Sprouts

Last winter I published the directions on how to make a large variety of sprouts. As soon as the greens were done for the season back in December I started growing sprouts for our winter greens. Since we have been doing a series on coleslaw I developed a recipe that is just great using sprouts. I didn't have any cabbage sprouts so I used broccoli sprouts, lentil sprouts and clover sprouts. Yum!

Here is the recipe with several substitution suggestions and a great sauce...

Coleslaw - The Waldorf Version

The classic Waldorf salad uses lettuce, but this version uses cabbage. Like the original invented by Oscar Tschirky, the dining room manager at the renowned Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York city, is has apples, walnuts and it is addictive in its crisp, delicate, crunchy, sweet and sour form.

History lesson aside, this is a great slaw.

Coleslaw - Curried

I like curry, which is a little out of place in Minnesota, given its Scandinavian roots. This slaw combines winter vegetables and the tastes of SE Asia.

It features a sweet curry from Penzey's Spices located Wauwatoa, WI. Bill Pensey blends spices from all over the world and has stores all over the US. I just mail order most of what we use. Pensy spices are the freshest and boldest I have found.

What seeds can I plant for a fall garden?

Along about the first of July the garden centers box up all their remaining seeds and send them back to the seed companies. But you know as a educated and well informed gardener that the season is far from over. In fact some of the best vegetables come from the fall garden.

I just got my fall seed order from Johnny's seeds in Maine. Let's talk about what you can plant from seed that will thrive in the fall.  Here is my top 10 list.

Plants That Do Well Together in Pots

There are a number of combinations of garden plants that do well together in pots. Here are 10 combinations:

1. Sunflower, squash and peas. Similar to the three sisters that were planted by the native Americas when the Europeans first settled in America.
2. Two peppers do well in pots. They also do well planted together in the garden.
3. Combinations of herbs, such as Basil, Rosemary and Thyme.
4. Edible flowers such as pansies work well with shorter herbs.

Parsnips, the Great Experiment

Many of our fellow farmers market vendors grow parsnips and I will join them for the first time this year. We grow thousands of pounds of carrots but nary a single parsnip. So why the oversight?

Ravioli and Winter Vegetables

I don't know about you, but I like about any kind of ravioli. Jenna and I made spinach and rigotta ravioli pasta last night for supper after we all got back from Christmas shopping. It was very good. I'm going to put the recipe in the blog, but realize that the ravioli filling can take lots of forms and many of the winter storage vegetable work well for ravioli.

Ingredients:

Dough:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
6 eggs

Filling:

1 pound fresh spinach
1 tablespoon salt
1 pound ricotta
1 egg
2 tablespoons heavy cream
4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch black pepper

Sauce:

1/4 pound butter
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon chopped sage

Directions:

Dough is formed by making an indentation in the floor on a tabletop or bowl.  Add the eggs to the center of the flour indentation. Incorporate the flour into the eggs with a fork. Knead the flour and eggs together to form dough and continue to knead until the dough is thoroughly worked together, this should take 4 to 5 minutes. Reserve the dough until ready to assemble.

Cook the spinach until tender. Remove the spinach from the boiling water and cool for 2 to 3 minutes. Put into a colander and squeeze out the water from the spinach. Chop the spinach coarsely and combine spinach, ricotta, egg, heavy cream and parmesan cheese. Season with nutmeg, remaining salt, and black pepper.

To make the sauce, melt the butter in in a skillet. Simmer the nutmeg, saga and butter for 1 minute. Reserve until the raviolis are cooked.

Assemble the raviolis, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Roll out each piece to form a thin layer (about 1/8 inch).  Place 1 spoonful of filling onto a sheet of dough 1/2 inch from the edge. Continue to place spoonfuls of filling along the dough 1-inch apart. Put another strip of dough on top of the strip with the filling on it. Pinch the edges of each ravioli with the tines of a fork.  Use a knife  to cut out the raviolis. Set aside each ravioli on a cookie sheet dusted with flour. Avoid stacking so they don't stick together.

Add raviolis  to boiling water. When they are fully cooked, they will float, this takes about 2-3 minutes to finish cooking. Serve each portion with sage butter and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of grated parsmesan cheese.

Other fillings for ravioli are:

• carrots
• kale
• cheese
• winter squash: butternut, acorn, delicate, jester (are all good types)

Brussels Sprout Slaw

One of the challenges in the late fall and early winter is to come up with creative salad options that use seasonal vegetables. The slaw recipe uses Brussels sprouts, carrots, red onions and apples. All are readily available in November and December in Minnesota.

Ingredients

1 Quart Brussels Sprouts finely chopped
1 Large carrot, grated
1 Small Red Onion, finely sliced
1 Apple, cored and sliced into slivers
1 cup pecans
A sprinkle of  cayenne or chiptole pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon coarse brown or Dijon mustard
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Directions

Use one tablespoon of the maple syrup to mix with the pecans. When well mixed sprinkle with a little of your favorite pepper. Set the oven to 200F and toast for 10 minutes. The pecans will stick to the cookie sheet, so you will have to scrape lose.

Mix 3 tablespoons maple syrup, the mustard, salt, pepper. Wisk with the olive oil.

Toss with the Brussels sprouts, carrots, onion and apple. Let sit for 30 minutes to blend flavors.

The slaw can be used as a salad or as a garnish on a sandwich.

You may not have this available but I also added a large tablespoon of poblano relish to the dressing. This provided a little zip without being too spicy.

Sweeter With Frost - Carrots

Fresh organic carrots are great anytime of the growing season but are amazing once the plants are exposed to several light frosts. I have been picking enough carrots each week to satisfy our customers. The carrots we have been picking have been excellent, but I have been holding back on the main harvest until we get those first few frosts.

Why are they sweeter with frost? When temperatures drop below freezing the starches in the carrots turn to sugars. That is great for those of us that love carrots, but why do the carrots do this? Well sugar in the cells of the carrots is a type of antifreeze to protect the carrot from damage by ice crystals forming in the cells of the carrot. Carrots are a biennial and need to be able to overwinter to produce seed the next year.

We have an excellent late fall carrot crop this year. I planted 7 rows approximately 300 feet long toward the end of July. It took 100,000 seeds to cover this many rows. I use a strip of compost about 8-10 inches wide and 4 inches deep to provide good emergence and a weed free zone. Carrots don't need a lot of fertilizer so the compost is just right for that. It took 20,000 pounds of compost (14 pickup loads) to make the rows, so it took a couple of weeks to get this all ready.

With the stage set we now had to deal with the weather, it was very very dry about this time and I had to water a couple of times to get things started. Carrots are kind finicky that way, they don't like weeds when they are little and it takes about three weeks after planting for germination and the appearance of those first few spindly fronds. You don't quite know the status of your planting for three weeks. You just need to water thoroughly a couple of times and trust that everything is well.

Our teenagers weeded thoroughly between the rows every couple of weeks and I also ran the wheel hoe through a couple of times. So weed control has been excellent. I planted the rows about 20 inches apart so the carrots at maturity will almost shade the ground between the rows. They look beautiful planted that way.

Most of the carrots came up just fine, but I had one area where I must not have watered enough that didn't germinate. It was only about 20 feet long, so I just replanted those rows. These carrots are about three week behind the main group.

Carrots planted for fall like this need to be plated about 90 days before harvest, instead of the normal 60 days due to the shortening of the days and the drop in temperature during the last month before harvest.

We have been monitoring progress (read munching on a few carrots) for the last 3-4 weeks and things are coming along nicely.

Be A Carrot, It Is Worth The Wait

A few weeks ago I planted 100,000 candy carrots. This quantity of seeds planted 7 rows 400 feet each or about 2800 feet (about a 1/2 mile) of row. It takes 14-21 days for the carrots seed to germinate and emerge. The tricky part about planting carrots in the summer is keeping them moist enough to germinate if you hit a dry stretch of weather. I have learned to plant carrots at this time of the year where I can get a hose to them to water.

For this particular planting I did something a little unusual in that I planted the rows about 20 inches apart. I normally plant them about 40 inches apart so I can use the rototiller to weed between the rows. So this is about twice the planting density I normally do. I did this to experiment with my new Hoss wheel hoe, which can weed a much narrower row. If everything goes as planned we will have some outstanding and delicious carrots for late summer and fall.

I was reading about how carrots send down a tap root seeking moisture even before the spindly little fronds appear. Sounds like carrots have their priorities straight. They seek moisture and nutrients and anchor themselves before making an appearance on the world stage. Pretty slick trick by a wise master designer. All that going on before we can see anything. No wonder it takes a couple of weeks before they emerge.

You've heard the old adage that if you want to grow a squash it only takes 6 weeks. If you want an oak it might take a couple of hundred years.

Well now, we know that if you want to grow a carrot (and see it emerge) you must be patient for three weeks until the magic is worked beneath the soil. If you want to grow a radish it only take 3 days for it to emerge and the whole life cycle is only 21 days. So the radish is ready to pick when the carrot is just coming up. But the amazing sweetness of the carrot is something to behold and well worth the wait.

As a farmer, the carrot offers a little more challenge and a lot more reward. Isn't it funny how that works.

Be a carrot; it is well worth the wait.

Candy Carrots Are Here

The moment we have all been waiting for. Candy Carrots are finally ready.

Our children call them candy carrots because they are sweet , delicious and bursting with flavor.  These are early Nantes type carrots and are exceptionally sweet. We grow them in soil that is cemical free so there are no off flavors or bitterness.

Despite the cool Rainey weather they are just perfect. We got them in real early and we should have a continuous supply for the rest of the year.

We picked 60 lbs and they won't last long.